Corbin Burnes Won’t Reach Double Digit Strikeouts in Return UPDATE: Burnes Strikes Out 9

UPDATE: Corbin Burnes was fantastic in his return to the Brewers' rotation as he allowed just one run on five hits and struck out nine over five innings of work. Burnes was lifted prior to the sixth inning after throwing 78 pitches. He went under his strikeout projection of 9.5. What follows is the original report from pregame.

Corbin Burnes was one of the hottest pitchers in baseball before going on the injured list after testing positive for COVID-19. He will return to the Milwaukee Brewers’ rotation on Thursday when they take on the St. Louis Cardinals.

Burnes has an interesting player prop projection in his return to the mound, as WynnBET has his total strikeout prediction set at 9.5 on Thursday. The over (+120) is the underdog to the under (-160) and we’re siding with Vegas in this one. 

Burnes has been lights out, and he sports a 1.53 earned run average with 49 strikeouts in just 29.1 innings pitched this season. He’s gone over the 9.5 strikeout threshold in three of his five starts this season, but we expect things to be different today. 

Burnes has ramped up his throwing in his return from the injured list, but it is very possible the Brewers limit how long their ace will go against the Cardinals. Burns hasn’t thrown over 93 pitches in a game this season, and it has resulted in him throwing over 6.0 innings just once all year. 

St. Louis is the seventh-best team in baseball in terms of avoiding strikeouts. The Cardinals have struck out an average of 8.43 times per game, which does not bode well for Burnes’ odds to punch out double digits on Thursday. 

There are just too many things riding against Burnes on Thursday for us to pick the over in this prop. It will be a nice test to see how Burnes has recovered from his stay on the injured list as St. Louis is 22-15 this season and atop the NL Central in the standings.